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UMB Bank’s Kansas region portfolio grows in CEO’s first year

Gil Trout said Tuesday that his first year as UMB Bank’s Kansas region CEO was a busy one and that it’s likely to get busier in his second year.

Trout, who is based at the bank’s downtown office at 130 N. Market, said the Kansas region’s loan portfolio grew 14 percent in the past year. Loan growth should continue in 2014 as the bank prepares to add another commercial lender and, for the first time in Wichita, a treasury management officer.

“Most of our significant growth has come from Wichita,” he said.

Other parts of the bank’s Wichita operations have been growing at the same time, prompting UMB to lease space for its agribusiness division and private wealth management in the nearby Market Centre building, 155 N. Market.

Trout said the bank’s Kansas headquarters building did not have enough space to accommodate the additional employees in those businesses as well as the new officers the bank has hired for its commercial operations. He said the new hires are in addition to five commercial officers already employed at the bank’s Wichita office.

Trout’s geographic oversight has also changed this year. Previously, he had been responsible for Kansas and the bank’s greater Missouri region. Trout was CEO of the Missouri region and based out of Springfield before being promoted in late 2012 to the Kansas post. He started his Kansas job in January 2013.

Effective this year, the bank exchanged Trout’s oversight of the Missouri region for Oklahoma, which encompasses Tulsa and Oklahoma City, he said.

The addition of a commercial lender and treasury management officer comes at the same time the bank plans to close one of its three Wichita branches. The bank announced in February that it would close the branch at 2333 S. West St. on April 25. It said the decision to close that branch came following an analysis of customers’ needs and use of the facility.

Trout said that despite the branch closing, consumer banking remains an important part of UMB’s business.

“We really understand that our consumer bank platform supports our commercial bank,” he said, adding that the decision to close was largely based on increased use of technology by retail banking customers.

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